A NOVELIST'S EXPERIMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5581, 3 June 1896, Page 2

A NOVELIST'S EXPERIMENT.

Nothing in recent fiction is more sensational - than ' a " ~ book ' which has recently been ■written by . Mr H. G. Wells. The author, as is well, known, is a young and successful novelist, and lately made a hit with that much-discussed book, "A Wonderful Visit." He has shown himself the possessor of a very bold and daring imagination, and at the same time of a reckless disregard of accepted theories of probability. In his, latest work, "The Island of Dr Moreau " all his characteristics are exaggerated. .'. The work contains more shudders to the square inch than anything . that has appeared for a very long time. The scene is laid on a remote island, the ruling spirit of which is a Dr Moreau, a skilled vivisectionist. The narrator finds his way to this distant spot owing to the accident of shipwreck and the fact of being picked \ip by a boat's crew. The practices that are carried on at the island are described by the writer with great abundance of detail. The presiding genius of the place has carried vivisection to lengths never dreamed of by mortal man. The visitor was inexpressibly shocked to find the island popiilated by creatures with human hands, furry ears and eyes, ■nose and mouth that apparently belonged to neither man nor beast. The doctor had, in fact, carried the common surgical practice of engrafting part of the flesh of one species on another to the length of changing the whole outward appearance of the type. He was preparing to carry the experiment further by burning out the bestial soul of his subject, when the whole population rose against him. The visitor escaped from the ensuing pandemonium by the kind offices of a half-humanised Sfc Bernard dog. The book is throughout a travesty of the modern scientific spirit, and an insult to human nature. It is only significant as showing the lengths to which the craze for originality may draw both novelists and novel* readers. Mr Wells has dealt with the supernatural more than once, and has shown that in this kind of writing he can both interest and instruct, but a work pf the class of "Dr Moreau and His Island" is still a long way in advance both of the scientific and novel-reading public.